POISONING BY VEGETABLES. 
297 
Thus, in the case of a monkey, which for thirty days under- 
went a course of this substance, and during this interval 
took 30 grms., or an oz. of morphine, a decigramme was 
obtained in crystals from the urine. The author sums up 
in the following proposition : The vegetable poisons, espe- 
cially morphine, are capable of being partly neutralized 
when mixed with the vital fluids or exposed to the influence 
of the vital forces ; but the portion which produces the mor- 
bid effects, the portion which kills, remains undecomposed 
in the organs, and chemistry is capable of detecting it. 
This proposition appears to involve an extremely inter- 
esting consequence. Infanticides produced by substances 
called abortive are real cases of poisoning, which may be 
confined to the product of conception, just as they may 
sometimes extend to the mother. Strictly speaking, all poi- 
sons, according to this view, are abortive substances. The 
poisonous substance is, as it were, directly transported to 
the organs of conception by absorption, the uterus, during 
pregnancy, by means of its peculiar function, exerting a 
kind of eliminating power. A small dose, incapable of 
killing the mother, suffices to destroy the foetus ; and when 
this is dead, abortion is the consequence. 
In making experiments upon the mineral poisons, and 
especially arsenic, the author has seen rabbits abort, and 
found the poison in the young ones. These experiments 
have been renewed in studying the effects of morphine. 
Two rabbits which had taken the poison with their food 
aborted, as did also a bitch poisoned by subcutaneous ab- 
sorption. Unfortunately, these experiments could not be 
made complete or conclusive ; for the rabbits devoured al- 
most all their little ones, and the bitch ate the placentae in 
her case. The author thinks it highly probable that, as in 
the case of arsenic, the poisons reach the products of con- 
ception, and that chemistry may discover them when used 
as instruments of crime in cases of abortion ; moreover, that 
poisoning is a phenomenon of absorption, and that the 
